General Asylum: REVIEW: Cary Audio Design SLP50 Preamplifier (Tube) by Aurel

I have used this preamplifier during one year.

It is a good product. Vocals (especially females) are entirely open, nearly
palpable. Most of the "tube magic sound" that many audiophiles are looking for
is here. The design is very simple, the components are selected and the result is
a pure, natural, musical sound.

The deeper bass are not extremely well controled. The low frequency response is
not the best around. This part of the spectrum is a bit "fuzzy".

After having compared it with many others my feeling is that this unit is
quite severly coloured. This is clearly not a very accurate gear. But I am sure
it would match very well a 300B, 845 or 2A3 SET amplifier. A kind of nice
musical instrument in itself... Nevertheless, the result is always charming to
the ears.

The look is nice. It seems to be extremely well built. The volume control
potentiometer is one of the best I have ever used. But reliability is not very
good and some servicing operations have been required.

As a conclusion, this is, in my opinion, a good unit. Far from being the best
(my new Plinius CD-LAD is better in every respect), but worth to be considered at
its price point.

Sorry for my frenchman english...

REVIEW: Cary Audio Design SLP50 Preamplifier (Tube) Review by Aurel at Audio Asylum